by Malcom, Anne
Nothing but a hand covered in tattoos, tanned, weathered, foreign.
“You’re gonna have to face me at some point,” he said, voice gravely, still half clutched by sleep.
I glanced down and his wrinkled tee and worn jeans. It looked like laundry day was nearing for him too. Did he have one of the club girls take care of those needs? Like he did others?
I swallowed bile.
“I’m not the one who has anything or anyone to face up to,” I shot, my voice not full of the venom required to land the shot as I intended. I looked down to where his grip tightened at my words. It was real pain now, not just the stuff conjured up by my ruined heart. I liked it. His touch, no longer tender or reverent. It was a nice reminder of who he was now. Of who I was now.
“Let me go,” I said through gritted teeth, forcing the command out through sheer self-preservation.
“You’re not giving me a chance to,” he said, not letting go. “You’re determined to hate me.” His eyes shimmered, liquid emeralds that I’d gazed into a lifetime ago and jumped off a cliff with. Because I trusted him to know that I would have a soft landing.
It was torture looking into those same eyes knowing he was never going to give me a soft landing ever again.
I ripped my arm from his grasp, pushing past him and into the common room. I knew he was going to follow me even before the footfalls of his motorcycle boots echoed behind me. That was why I walked into the common room instead of his bedroom. I couldn’t have him in there, have us in there in such close proximity to that white feather hidden in his drawer.
I couldn’t run.
So I sat at the bar, setting my coffee cup on the surface covered in rings from bottles and glasses. A lemony disinfectant smell mixed with whisky, beer, and cigarette smoke.
It wasn’t unpleasant.
Liam situated himself beside me with a sigh.
I sipped my coffee.
He watched me.
I knew he was taking this for what it was, surrender. He was expecting the questions that Scarlett had urged me to ask. There was only so long that we could both tiptoe around this elephant.
But I still wasn’t ready. Still wasn’t strong enough to face my feelings. Face the answers.
So I did what I did best, I hid behind the story.
“The club runs guns,” I said. It wasn’t a question, though I expected a denial. Or silence. Or a lie.
No one, especially not reporters, should expect the truth when hard questions are asked. It’s figuring out how to find truth from the lies people tell, that’s where a good reporter is made.
“Yeah, we do,” he replied.
I’d heard a lot of things, was hardened to them. Truth from a criminal shocked me. Should I be shocked? Liam had always been honest with me. About the little things.
Little things like being a part of a club that runs guns.
He just wasn’t honest about the big things.
Like the fact he wasn’t dead.
“How long has the club run guns for?” I asked.
“Since before I started prospecting,” he replied.
I winced inwardly. Since before he came back from a war. Since before he chose not to come home to me.
But I was a journalist, I knew how to recover from hard answers, how to make it seem like they didn’t bother me.
“It’s rooted in criminal activity then,” I mused.
His eyes hardened. “It’s rooted in brotherhood.”
I regarded the room we were sitting in. The leftover bottles and dirty glasses from yet another party. Signals of disorder everywhere. But there were photos peppering the walls, separated by gun and motorcycle memorabilia. Grainy black and white photos of men with their arms around each other, grinning in front of motorcycles. More, in color, newer, with different men, but the cuts, the smiles, the bikes were ever present.
There were framed mugshots.
Another sign that they were an outlaw club.
Then there were photos of children.
Families.
It was a rich, bloodstained, and violent tapestry, weaving through the outskirts of society and the outskirts of the law.
I straightened, meeting Liam’s emerald eyes once more. They hadn’t moved from me. His attention was uncomfortable, because it was unyielding. Whenever I was in the room, he never took his eyes off me, as if he were terrified I’d go away and he was trying to make me disappear at the same time.
Or maybe that was just what I was doing with him.
“You haven’t had any convictions, despite numerous DEA operations,” I continued.
Something moved in his face. “You’ve done your research.”
I nodded. “It’s what a good reporter does.”
“So that’s what this is, you’re being a good reporter?” Accusation soaked his tone. Accusation that he was not entitled to. That he was not allowed to hurl at me.
I clenched my fists, sinking my nails into the skin that had only just scabbed over. But that’s what it was with Liam, every interaction, was picking at a scab, opening barely healed wounds.
I was always bleeding around him.
“Yes,” I gritted out. “I’m being a good reporter. Since you’re the only one that will answer my questions honestly, for the sake of the story, I’m putting our...personal history aside.”
He glared at me. “We’re a lot of things, Peaches, but we’re not fucking history.”
I couldn’t hide my flinch. Not this time. I sank my nails farther into my skin. “I asked you not to call me that.” I was ashamed at how weak my voice was.
Instead of answering, Liam looked down at my hands and his glare deepened. He snatched them, forcing my palms open and let out a low hiss at the fresh blood covering them. “Jesus, Peaches, what the fuck are you doin’ to yourself?”
I wrenched my hands back, standing. “It’s not me doing anything,” I yelled. “It’s you. You’re cutting me open and you don’t even fucking know. You don’t even fucking care, Jagger.” I spat the word at him before I turned on my heel and stalked off.
Chapter Twelve
Jagger
He watched her walk away and wondered if he should follow her.
But he wasn’t physically capable of following her. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t take a fucking step, bleeding from the wounds he sustained from the short exchange. From seeing her cut her fucking skin open because she couldn’t stand being around him.
He was a sick fuck.
Keeping her here.
In his room.
Forcing her to face his fucked up, scarred face every day. Forcing her to watch as he revealed just what a monster he was. He was doing that to push her away. But he wasn’t letting her go.
So what the fuck was he doing?
He stared at the pictures on the walls. The ones he’d stared at a thirteen years ago, looking for somewhere to lose himself. If he was honest, he was looking to die. Or maybe he was hoping for the club to save him enough to figure out a way to go back to her. Marry her. Make good on the promise he’d made to her father before he asked her to marry him.
His palms were sweating as he took the beer Trevor gave him.
He took it with one hand and wiped the other on his jeans.
Trevor settled on the chair beside him on the porch, looking out onto the street that both he and Caroline grew up on. She wasn’t the girl next door. But she was the girl six houses down. When they got together, they were at each other’s houses so much that their parents knew if one wasn’t home, they’d be at the other’s.
Both of their families took the intensity of their relationship in their stride. Either because they saw what it was, something more than teenage infatuation. Or because they were just good parents who wanted their children to be happy.
Which was what he was hoping from Trevor.
He was hoping he didn’t shoot him with any of the number of guns he kept in the house. This was Alabama, after all.
Trevor, the man who’
d snuck him beer since he was sixteen. Though it wasn’t really sneaking, since his first beer was given to him by his father at sixteen at a family BBQ. His philosophy was if he let his son have a beer now and then, then he wouldn’t have a lot all the time.
The theory worked.
Liam liked a beer, but he had no interest in keggers and getting drunk off his ass.
Mainly because whatever parties he was at, Caroline was there too, and no fucking way was he getting drunk off his ass when he had his girl to take care of.
Which was probably why he got a lot of respect—and beer, though he guessed it was the same thing from the man in question—from Trevor. That and because he treated him like his own.
It seemed as if Trevor could sense what Liam was on the porch for. Not that the act itself was an irregular occurrence, they’d sit out here shooting the shit while Caroline was getting ready or whatever.
But Caroline wasn’t home. She was shopping with her mom and sister, then going to a movie.
Her mom was trying to squeeze out all the time she could with her daughter before she moved away to college most likely. Liam knew that because his mom was the same.
It would’ve been annoying as shit if he didn’t love his mom so much.
He didn’t care whatever any asshole said, it didn’t make you a pussy to admit you loved your mom. It made you a man. Because if you can admit you love your mom, you deserve the love of a woman.
That’s what his dad said anyway.
And he tended to agree with him.
The silence between him and Trevor lasted for half a beer. Again, not unusual. They didn’t have to talk, unlike his wife and daughters, like his son Will, who only spoke in grunts, Trevor was comfortable in silence. As was Liam.
But he wasn’t silent because he was comfortable.
He was silent because he was nervous as fuck.
“You sweat any more bullets I’ll be able to arm myself for the next year,” Trevor commented.
Liam snapped his head over to him.
“You don’t have to be nervous, son, you want my approval, you got it,” he continued, taking a pull of his beer.
Liam struggled to recover. “What?”
Trevor rolled his eyes in an almost perfect impression of his daughter. “Know you’re here to ask for my blessing to marry Caroline. You’ve got it. Had it since the day you walked in, looked me in the eye shook my hand and then looked to my little girl like you’d lay down your fucking life for her. You’re probably gonna get shit from Aggie about how young you both are. And you are young. Too young for some things. Maybe this. But I don’t think so. ‘Cause of the way you looked at Caroline the first day you stepped foot in this house. Not a look of a sixteen-year-old kid. It was the look of a man. A man I know will protect my daughter from hurt.”
It wasn’t a question, but it was. Liam nodded rapidly. “I’d rather die than see her hurt.”
Trevor chuckled. “Well don’t go and do that, that’s a surefire way to destroy her. But you treat her good, we’re not gonna have problems. I already consider you my son.”
“I’m gonna treat her good,” Liam promised.
“I know,” Trevor agreed. He finished his beer. “Now you can relax. Probably gonna be your last chance for a while.” Trevor winked.
Liam laughed. And he leaned back. Relaxed. On the porch with a cold beer and the warm evening sun. And the knowledge he had forever with Caroline.
A clap on his shoulder had him pulling out his piece.
Swiss grinned at the Glock pointed at his heart. “Good morning to you too, sunshine.” He leaned over and snatched Caroline’s coffee, sipping it before he could stop him.
Jagger stiffened, forcing himself to pocket his piece when he really wanted to empty the clip into his brother for sipping on Caroline’s fucking coffee cup.
Swiss screwed up his face. “Willy Wonka shit in here? Didn’t take you for a sweet tooth. Man with as much bitter as you couldn’t possibly imbibe that much sugar and survive,” he teased.
Jagger gritted his teeth. He still hadn’t forgiven the fucker for what he’d done, taking Caroline to the basement. Even though he was just following orders. Hansen was the one responsible.
But somehow it seemed so much fucking easier to be mad at the soldier than the General.
They were easier to dispatch at least.
Jagger snatched the cup back. It was still warm.
“It’s Caroline’s,” he growled. “You sip from her cup again, I’ll take you down to the basement for a trip that will not get you off.”
Swiss was fucked in many ways. The main being he got off on torture. Like got the fuck off. He didn’t hurt women. Not without their permission.
Mommy issues up the ass, that one.
And all the other issues in the world.
Swiss grinned wider. “Ah, makes sense. So what’s the deal with you and the rat anyway?”
No one knew about him and Caroline’s history but Jagger and Claw. He was surprised that big mouthed fucker hadn’t told anyone, especially Swiss. They were tight. Both previously Nomad. Maybe that’s why they connected, because they belonged in the Sons of Templar, but nowhere at the same time.
Or maybe it was because they were both depraved motherfuckers.
“She’s not a rat,” Jagger gritted out, his piece heavy and hot in his jeans, begging to be used.
Swiss shrugged. “Seems not. Yet at least. I get it. She’s got a good stomach for blood.”
He said it in a way that a man might comment on a woman’s ass or tits. Because that’s what it was to Swiss, what he found attractive, a woman’s ability to withstand and witness torture, apparently.
“Yeah, she does,” Jagger agreed reluctantly, thinking of her blank, jaded face in the basement. His cock hardened in his jeans.
Jesus, he was just as bad as Swiss. He was getting off on torture too.
Swiss clapped him on the shoulder. “This is gonna be a fucking mess, isn’t it?”
He wanted to hate the fucker, but there was an acceptance, a support in his words. “You think we’re not already in a fucking mess?” he shot back. “At war with a man we can’t touch, can’t find and most likely can’t fucking kill.”
Swiss shrugged again. “You can kill anyone. No matter how high up anyone is, or in his case, low down, they all die the same. Bleed the same. We’ll get him. It’ll be messy, sure.” Swiss nodded his head to the hall where Jagger’s room was. Where Caroline was. “That’s messier.” He didn’t wait for him to speak. Or shoot him. “Speaking of women who make messes. Rosie’s at the warehouse.”
“Fuck,” Jagger muttered under his breath. Rosie was high up on this thing, mostly because she was the one who fucked with Fernandez in the first place. And as much as all the men in her life had tried to fight this war for her, she was intent on being at least a General.
And she was a good one at that.
But she would likely not be happy to hear they’d killed three men when she’d instructed them not to pull any “violent, cavemen and vapid alpha male killing until I say it’s okay to let the beast out.”
It wasn’t that they weren’t down with listening to a woman, it’s that they needed blood.
Swiss nodded. “Fuck is right. Not a lot I’m scared of in this world. People barely scare me anymore. But that bitch,” he whistled. “Fuck. I’m man enough to say I’m terrified of her.”
Jagger glanced at the hall again. “Yeah, women are the most scary motherfuckers of them all,” he agreed.
* * *
He walked into the warehouse and wasn’t surprised to see the two-people engaged in an argument in the middle of countless illegal automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
“Rosie,” Jagger greeted right about the time she was calling the tightly-wound man in front an ‘overprotective caveman who was getting on her last fucking nerve.’
The woman in question gave her husband one last glare and then treated Jagger to the same one.
“Great, another male who thinks he can alpha his way through everything,” she hissed in greeting.
Jagger held up his hands in surrender, as was best to do with Rosie. Her brother might have been president of the founding charter and one bad motherfucker, but Rosie was something different. Sure, she’d mellowed some since becoming a mother, but the fact she still killed rapists in her spare time served as evidence she wasn’t exactly becoming June Cleaver any time soon.
“Hello to you too,” he said, spotting her piece in a shoulder holster, that looked like she’d fucking accessorized or some shit.
Luke came up on her left, body stiff as it always was in situations such as this. You couldn’t blame an ex-cop for being a little uptight around outlaws and a felony, but it wasn’t to do with that. Usually it was once a cop always a cop. But it wasn’t that case with Luke. It was once Rosie’s, always Rosie’s.
He was Rosie’s before the badge.
And after.
He didn’t blink at breaking the laws he used to enforce now he was married to the woman he’d loved all his life.
Not that he had a choice.
No one had a choice with women like Rosie.
Not only was she a fucking hot piece, but she’d cut your balls off before you could ever cup them goodbye.
“You fucking assholes think killing is some kind of fail-safe way to deal with everything?” she shot at him.
Jagger raised his brow. “Hey pot, it’s the kettle.”
She rolled her eyes, huffed out a breath and then glared at Luke, likely for the fact his mouth twitched upward at Jagger’s words.
“I don’t kill people with my dick, I do it with my brain,” she hissed. “Which is exactly what you assholes are doing. You can’t just go kidnapping and murdering every one of Fernandez’s men without him noticing and planning retribution.”
Jagger stiffened. “We meant for him to notice,” he clipped. “He sure as fuck meant for us to notice when he slaughtered our whole charter.” His voice was acidic in a tone that he’d never used with Rosie, not even when she threatened to castrate him if he didn’t fuck her.
It had been a fucking hard decision at the time, when someone who looked like Rosie tried to seduce you, you didn’t say no if you had two balls and two heads. And if someone as nuts as her threatened to cut off two of those balls and one of those heads, you heeded that shit.
